


String Theory

by Jeslieness



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, fanfic of a fanfic of a fanfic?, wiggleverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeslieness/pseuds/Jeslieness
Summary: A coda to Quilly's "An Experiment". It's bedtime, but Datura still has so many unanswered questions for their Azirafather!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 121
Collections: Wiggleverse





	String Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Snake Cottage, or Snottage,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420358) by [Quilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly). 



It wasn't a bad conclusion to an experiment, Datura thought. They still had their fathers to themselves, everyone had gotten a biscuit, and Angelica had gotten her football back. (Once the hugging was done, she had hidden it “in a safe place, where no one can _believe_ anything about it”.) Sometimes failure was best for science.

And yet, they thought, paging through their notes, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't _satisfying._ They'd wanted to learn something--to answer a set of questions--and not only hadn't they gotten some answers, now there were even more things to wonder about then before. It was maddening.

There was a soft knock on the open bedroom door. “All right, love? Goodness, you're not even in bed.”

“Azirafather,” said Datura, frowning at one of the pages, “why did you believe we were snakes?”

“What?”

They didn't need to look up. There was just something about the silence that followed that always meant Father and Azirafather were having one of those entirely unspoken conversations. Finally Azirafather sat down on Datura's bed and offered, sounding a little bewildered: “Well, your father told me that you were his eggs--”

“Also said I didn't lay them, angel--”

“--and I wasn't certain about _that,_ dear. But I--expected snakes. So you were.”

 _Now_ they were getting somewhere. Datura picked up a pen and turned to their parents--Father leaning in the doorway, looking like he was enjoying this conversation and wasn't at all sure he should; Azirafather looking both quizzical and slightly nervous. Holding it poised above the page, they said: “So if Father had said we were crocodile eggs....”

“The eggs were too small,” said Azirafather, “and I never would have allowed him to leave crocodiles in my bookshop, and where would Father have gotten crocodiles, anyway?” He immediately looked as though he regretted the last question.

“The things I could have done with crocodiles in London,” said Father, a little wistfully. “Not a bad idea, spawn.”

_“Crowley!”_

“But we _could_ have been crocodiles, if you really believed it?”

“I,” said Azirafather, and then, “well,” said Azirafather, and finally, “yes, I suppose? Very well-behaved crocodiles, of course, the kind who would _never_ chew on a book.”

“Course,” said Datura agreeably, scribbling away. “Do you think we could have been dinosaurs?”

 _“Dinosaurs?_ Of course not, there's no such thing--”

“Adorable little pterodactyls, the lot of them,” said Father. And it was an interesting mental image, the five of them as those funny lizard-birds humans had come up with, but Datura put it aside to think about later. There were scientific questions to be answered.

“Do you suppose string theory means there's another universe where you believed we were dragons?”

Azirafather's mouth opened and closed. He looked helplessly at Father, mouthing something that looked very much like _string theory?_ , and Father shrugged in response.

“Well, really, parallel universes would be a classified part of the development cycle, so I--I really couldn't say--”

“But hypothetically,” Datura persisted.

“It's hypothetically past your bedtime, spawn,” said Father. “Off you go. We can talk about quantum physics in the morning, when Rosa doesn't have to pretend to be asleep.” (Rosa's door made a tiny sheepish sound, one that was followed by the sheets rustling as she climbed back into bed.) “All you need to know for tonight is that you're here, and we're pleased about it. All right?”

Datura obediently left their notes and climbed into bed, to be tucked in, and hugged, and wished sweet dreams, just as they were night after night--and yes, never mind the questions, really, this was best of all. This had to be the nicest of all possible universes.

Even if they couldn't breathe fire.


End file.
